Children of Jordanian women and foreign fathers are expected to receive new “privileges” related to higher education before mid-September, a senior government official said to The Jordan Times.

“The Cabinet has issued new instructions that will give children of Jordanian women whose fathers are not Jordanians new privilege that will consider them as Jordanians when it comes to education in public universities,” the senior official source told The Jordan Times.

He went on to explain that, currently, “these youngsters are treated like foreigners and have to pay higher fees for the parallel admission at Jordanian governmental universities”.

Students entering university this year will benefit from the privileges “for sure”, the government official stressed.

Amman Third District MP Khalid Ramadan, who ran as part of the civil state ticket “Ma’an” said to the newspaper that he had met with several government officials to press for this issue “since we received several complaints from families whose children scored very high grades in the Tawjihi exams and do not feel it is fair for them to pay high fees to enroll in parallel programmes at government universities”.